Monster House (film)
Monster House is a 2006 computer animated motion capture horror/comedy film directed by Gil Kenan, produced by ImageMovers and Amblin Entertainment, and distributed by Columbia Pictures. Plot A little girl rides her tricycle around the neighborhood , singing along, she hits the lawn as she tries to get out, Nebbercracker snaps and takes the tricycle and removes the wheel to tempt her to go away. 12 year old DJ Walters spies on his elderly neighbor Mr. Nebbercracker who confiscates any item landing in his yard. DJ's parents leave town for the weekend for a dentists' convention, leaving him in the care of Elizabeth "Zee". DJ's best friend Charles "Chowder" loses his basketball on Nebbercracker's lawn. DJ is caught by Nebbercracker while recovering it, who rages at him before apparently suffering a heart attack and being taken away by an ambulance. That night, DJ receives phone calls from Nebbercracker's house with no one on the other end. DJ eavesdrops on Zee's boyfriend Bones who tells Zee about losing his kite on Nebbercracker's lawn when he was younger and that Nebbercracker supposedly ate his wife. Later, Bones sees his kite in the doorway of Mr. Nebbercracker's house, but he and the kite are consumed by the haunted house as he is retrieving it. The next morning, Jenny Bennett is selling Halloween chocolates. DJ and Chowder see her going to Nebbercracker's house, and they rush out to warn her catching her before she is eaten by the house. Jenny calls the police, but police officers Landers and Lester do not believe their story. The trio seek advice from Reginald "Skull" Skulinski, who is claimed to be an expert on the supernatural. They learn that the house is a "domus mactabilis" (Latin for "deadly home"); a being created when a human soul merges with a structure. They assume the house is inhabited by Nebbercracker's soul. The only way to kill the house is to destroy its heart; its source of life. They conclude that the heart must be the fireplace, as DJ realizes that the chimney has been smoking since Nebbercracker died. Chowder provides a cold medicine-filled dummy (made from a vacuum cleaner and some other objects) that should cause the house to sleep long enough for them to douse the furnace. Officers Landers and Lester thwart their plan upon arrival and they are arrested when Landers finds the cold medicine stolen from Chowder's father's pharmacy inside the dummy. The cops place the trio in their car while they examine the house. The house eats Landers, Lester and the car. DJ, Chowder and Jenny escape the car but are trapped in the house. The house falls asleep and they begin exploring. They fall into the basement and find a collection of toys accumulated from Nebbercracker's lawn, as well as a cage containing the body of Nebbercracker's wife Constance the Giantess encased in cement. The house realizes they are inside and attacks them. DJ, Chowder and Jenny force the house to vomit them outside by grabbing its uvula. Nebbercracker arrives home alive, revealing that the house is possessed by Constance. As a young man Nebbercracker met Constance, who was an unwilling member of a circus sideshow, and fell in love with her despite her obesity. After helping her escape, she and Nebbercracker began building the house. One Halloween, as children tormented her, Constance tried hurting them with an axe, but lost her footing and died in the foundations of the house. The cement buried her body. Nebbercracker finished the house after Constance's death, knowing it was what she would have wanted. Aware that Constance's spirit made the house come alive, Nebbercracker tried keeping people away by pretending to hate children. DJ tells Nebbercracker it is time to let Constance go, but she overhears. The house breaks free from its foundation and chases the group to a construction site. Nebbercracker attempts to convince Constance that she should die while holding a stick of dynamite, but Constance refuses. As she tries to eat him, Chowder fights the house off with a back hoe, causing it to fall into a pit. DJ is given the dynamite, and he and Jenny climb to the top of a crane while Chowder distracts Constance. DJ throws the dynamite into the chimney, destroying the house. The trio see Nebbercracker with Constance's ghost for the last time before she fades away. DJ apologizes to Nebbercracker for the loss of his house and wife, but Nebbercracker thanks DJ and the kids for freeing him and Constance. That night, children in their Halloween costumes are lined up at the site of Nebbercracker's house, where DJ, Chowder and Jenny help him return the toys to their owners. Jenny's parents pick her up and DJ and Chowder go trick-or-treating, which they previously thought they were too old for. As the credits roll, those who were eaten by the house emerge from the basement. Bones finds that Elizabeth is now dating Skull, Officer Landers and Officer Lester leave to "investigate" some of the trick-or-treating candy, and the dog urinates on a nearby jack-o'-lantern enough to put out its flame. Cast * Mitchel Musso: DJ Walters * Sam Lerner: Chowder * Spencer Locke: Jenny Bennett * Steve Buscemi: Horace Nebbercracker * Maggie Gyllenhaal: Zee * Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard: Mom and Dad * Jason Lee: Bones * Jon Heder: Skull * Kevin James and Nick Cannon: Officers Lister and Landers * Kathleen Turner: Constance Nebbercracker (as a human) * Frank Welker: Kevin the Dog, and Constance Nebbercracker (as a house) * Ryan Newman: Little Girl * Woody Schultz and Ian McConnel: Paramedics * Erik Walker and Matthew Fahey: Bullies Trivia *As of 2018, this is the only motion capture film to feature an entirely original story and not be based on existing source material. *For the German version of the film, Bones, Skull, and Chowder have been renamed "Punk," "Freak," and "Ketchup." *The first animated film to be made using Sony's animation rendering software. *This movie takes place in 1983. *Homages to various Stephen King stories abound. The idea of a house that comes alive and eats people can be found in the third installment of King's "Dark Tower" series, "The Wastelands." And while in the house's basement, Chowder shines his flashlight on a mechanical monkey much like the one found in King's short story "The Monkey," collected in "Skeleton Crew." *The motto on the police car reads "We Wanna Help." *Jon Heder, who played Skull, broke his leg on the first day on set. *The film used 3D motion capture techniques to digitally record the physical performances of the actors before "skinning" them with their animated forms. *Mitchel Musso and Sam Lerner went to see Napoleon Dynamite (2004) before shooting; when they arrived on set they screamed and jumped on Jon Heder, who played Napoleon. *The actors had to go through motion capture acting in order to animate the characters. The actors had to wear motion capture suits with little dots glued on their faces and a headpiece glued to their head with motion capture dots. After they took off their suits, the glue would cause irritation to their hair and scalp, but luckily they'd get a head massage with shampoo. *Chowder's line "DJ, you piss in bottles?" had to be re-dubbed "...you pee in bottles?" to help maintain a PG rating. You can still see Chowders's lips speak the original line. *In the original screenplay, DJ and Chowder are harassed by two bullies named Ryan and Cameron who get eaten after DJ purposely lures them to the house as bait. The two characters were removed from the screenplay because the studio thought their death was far too dark, and that the bullies combined with DJ's cruel babysitter, boyfriend, and Nebbercracker all made the film seem much more cruel. *The film is set in a city called Mayville, which is based on screenwriter Rob Schrab's hometown of Mayville, Wisconsin. *Although never mentioned in dialog, signs, license plates, and the screenplay say the film takes place in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. *There is a back story involving Skull (played by Jon Heder) and Bones (played by Jason Lee) being in an amateur heavy metal band. When we first meet Zee (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal), she is wearing a top with "Skull 'n' Bones" written on, and later puts one of their cassette tapes on called "Live! at the Smell". She is also dating Bones in the movie. *During the vacuum scene where the boys dress it up to look like a monster it's dressed just like a kid who walks into the Halloween party in Donnie darko same mask and leather man jacket. *The second film to be released in REAL D's digital 3D format. *The tricycle scene at the beginning of the movie is a homage to Stanley Kubrick's film rendition of Stephen King's "The Shining." *During the opening leaf sequence, in the background can be seen the crane which is featured later in the film. *The markers DJ used to draw the plan to taking out the house was from a store called "Sir Sniff-A-Lot". *This is the first Columbia's animated theatrical film to be rated PG by the MPAA. *This is Jason Lee's second animated film, after The Incredibles (2004). Goofs *The mask that Chowder wears at the beginning of the film disappears after Mom and Dad run over it. *When Chowder says "DJ, run!", his mouth does not move. *When DJ wakes up from his nightmare, his phone is ringing. However, when DJ and Chowder run out to rescue Jenny, the ringtone is different. *The morning after Nebbercracker's departure, Zee's car is missing from the driveway. *When Jenny goes to sell candy to the house, DJ and Chowder run up and the "KEEP AWAY" sign is on the left behind Jenny mostly covered by Chowder. In the next shot, the sign is less than three feet from her and in front of her. *Zee had plenty of time to see the house in its "monster" state when she opened the front door to tell Chowder he had a phone call. *Jenny says they have one hour, probably implying she has one hour until her Mom picks her up. She arrives at DJ's house early in the morning, and it is dark when her mother arrives, meaning she was there for far more than one hour. We also see her make or receive no calls to/from her mother. *When Kevin first appears before getting eaten by Constance, it squats to pee in the manner of a female dog. At the end of the movie, when it appears again, it hikes its leg up and pees as a male dog. The dog is referenced in the credits as "Kevin". Male dogs are also known to squat in the manner of a female when they pee, so this is quite a possible thing. *The driver side on the police car switches between the two times it is seen. The first time, it is shown as a normal car in the United States. When the police arrive to arrest the kids, it pulls up onto the curb with driver side moved to the incorrect side. *Before DJ, Chowder and Jenny went to Nebbercracker's house to try out their dummy plan, the scene focuses on a picture DJ took, which is of the tree outside the house. When the scene changes and becomes real, it showed the three of them walking towards the house, which was on the right side of the screen. If DJ had taken the photo from his house, they should have been moving towards the other side where the house should have been. *When DJ, Chowder and Jenny are sneaking over to the house with the dummy, they are hiding in trash cans. It shows them walking as though the trash cans are on top of them. However, they then peek their heads out of the top of the trash cans. Unless the trash cans don't have bottoms, this would not be possible. *When the kids are in the back of the police car yelling at the police as they approach the house their voices are muffled as if completely enclosed in a car despite the front, driver-side window being open and a metal grate separating the front and back of the police car. *When the cops are being eaten after the kids attempt to feed the dummy to the house, the dummy disappears. It could have been eaten quickly by another appendage when we were not looking. *When DJ, Jenny and Chowder are jumping out of the back of the police car for safety, they're not wearing their water guns and they are nowhere to be seen. However, in the next scene, their guns are around their arms and ready for use. *When Chowder sprays Jenny with water from his water gun in Nebbercracker's basement, the water mark disappears in the next shot of her which is just after a brief shot of DJ. The water could not have dried that quickly. *When DJ and Chowder swing away from the exploding house, you see DJ drop Chowder into the ditch as he swings over it. In the next shot, both DJ and Chowder are falling into the ditch at the same time. In Other Languages Category:Miscellaneous